I is all happy, I can read Hiragana!! Don't understand it, but I can read it.
Yes LMD is learning Japanese, slowly but surely.
Yup, I is learning Katakana now and basic sentence structure, Woo
More bad luck
"How did you hold their attention?" Neji sighed and sank down into the armchair next to the bed.
"Bribery, at least until they liked me." Hinata answered, she was sitting crossed legged in the bed while Sakura changed the bandages on her face and neck, they'd changed the ones on her chest before Neji showed up. Takara was down the hall for some physiotherapy on her right arm and shoulder. If that was successful then the doctor would begin work on her left arm.
"Two of them are alright but one just refuses to listen to me…"
"Meg, she's like that , not a people person" Hinata answered "Ow"
"Then stop moving." Sakura tsked as she applied a clean bandage to the side of Hinata's face.
"That's gonna leave a scar isn't it?" Hinata asked, trying not to move her jaw.
"'fraid so…" Sakura answered, and she gathered up the used wrappings and dumped them in the medical waste bin. After that she said she had to go check on a couple of other patients and she'd be back later to chat.
"So how are you handling my genin?" Hinata asked with a teasing smile.
"Lets put it like this, I now understand why Asuma sensei smokes." he rubbed his forehead. "I think that Megumi one is out to get me."
"She is"
"What!?"
"Let me guess you underestimated her? She hates that… watch for lasso traps"
"Great…" Neji muttered. Hinata chuckled at him,
"What about the other two?"
"The boy is alright I guess, he loves his sword too much… the other one, she's fine I find the hair a little weird… "
"You'll get used to it."
"They want to visit you but every time we finish training visiting hours are over, and cuz your still in special care they're not allowed in." Hinata nodded, in a way she missed her cute little genin. Neji pushed himself up after glancing at his watch.
"Guess its time to go meet up with them…I'll talk to you later on then."
"Bye Neji, good luck" she teased as he left, Hinata reached over and lifted one of the manga she got for her birthday, Naruto had been shooed and caught to go on a mission so she was on her own for the moment, and bored out of her skull.
Neji stood near the rock where the team usually met up, Aiko, whose hair was light blue today, was there before him as usual, Shin appeared not long after and Megumi sundered down the hill a lot later.
"I starting to think your doing it on purpose Megumi." He said.
"I am" she muttered to Shin, she didn't like Neji.
"Alright enough of that. I have an exercise set up for you at the back of the training field so come on." Neji spun and strode away.
"Not another one…" Moaned Shin, "this guys too strict, its like he has a stick up his ass."
"Maybe that's why his posture is perfect." Megumi muttered and Shin clapped his hands around his mouth to stop from laughing out loud, Aiko giggled behind her hands as well.
"Wish he'd let us go early for once, maybe then we could go see Hinata-sensei." Aiko said after her giggles subsided.
"Hey I have an idea." Megumi whispered and grinned her evil grin when ever she had 'mission escape plans'.
"Alright here it is," Neji stopped once he reached the back of the training field and turned to face the three genin, "your task is too…" the three genin stared blankly ahead, "the little…" Neji started cursing as the three clones poofed into smoke, the genin where long gone.
A commotion in the hall tore Hinata's attention away from her manga, Curious, she slid off the bed and grabbed her crutch, hopping to the door she peaked out into the hall. Further down the corridor the head nurse had her hands full, literally, she had both Megumi and Shin by the ears and an apologetic looking Aiko standing nearby.
"I said no one but family is allowed past this point" the nurse said, Hinata frowned, she was stopping just about anyone who came to visit, only Neji and Naruto where allowed in.
"Ow! Hey let me go!" Megumi tried to wriggle out of the woman's grip but she had a tight grip on her ear.
"You causing trouble again Meg?" Hinata had hopped out of her room and to the fun.
"Sensei!" Aiko said sounding happy to see the woman.
"Hinata-chan, you shouldn't be putting weight on your leg yet." the nurse said.
"Aw come on, I'm only outside my room and I have my crutch this time." the nurse gave a scolding scowl, but said nothing. "So what are you guys doing here?" she asked the genin.
"We came to visit you sensei" Shin answered, his ear still in the firm grip of the nurse.
"Aw, can't you let them stay for a while?" Hinata asked.
"No, its family only past this point" the nurse replied.
"Please can we stay? We've been so worried about Hinata-sensei" Aiko asked flashing her big brown puppy eyes.
"Its family only…" Aiko dropped her eyes to the ground with a whimper, "so don't tell anyone…." the nurse said with a defeated sigh and let go of the two kids.
"Thanks" Hinata smiled at the nurse for letting up on her strict rules. She hopped back to her room followed by the genin, two of them rubbing their throbbing ears. As Hinata got back into the bed Aiko rushed over to take the crutch and leant it against the wall.
"Thanks Aiko, so you guys miss me?" Hinata asked her genin with a grin.
"Yeah, we've been stuck with some terrible subs…" Shin started.
"This new guys the worst through, he's super strict and he keeps patronising us." Megumi said.
"He doesn't know the first thing about dealing with new genin, and keeps making us do those stupid training exercises over and over, he never changes them, and he is always so sour." Aiko moaned, Hinata tried to suppress her giggles, if Aiko was criticizing him, he must be bad.
"So you guys thought you could dodge your training?" Hinata rose an eyebrow at them, Aiko looked at the ground, Shin rubbed his head and grinned guiltily, Megumi diverted her gaze as well.
"Well, we didn't see you for a while and then Neji-san said you were in here, so we thought we'd come visit" Shin explained still rubbing his head.
"You're still skipping training." Hinata said flatly
"But he's so annoying." Whined Megumi.
"You do know that's my brother."
"Er… right…."
Takara rubbed her neck, her physiotherapy was slow going. The newly repaired bones and muscles where stiff and sore. She'd spoken to the Royki doctor and he took another look at her left arm, it had been damaged further during the seizures brought on by the poison but the doctor said it was repairable.
"I'm gonna be stuck in here for ages…." she muttered to herself as she walked back towards her room. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirrored decoration, her hair was getting pretty long again it reached down to her shoulder blades, she have to get that cut, her face was drawn and a little pale but that was understandable, it would fade in time, it was weird that she was used to that…
"Speaking of fading…" she muttered again, the black lines where still prominent on her skin. They hadn't receded at all. The other times it had at least started to fade by now, but then again, the seal had never been fully activate before. It hurt. She'd talked to Tsunade about it earlier, she herself had no experience of seals, so they would need to get Jiraiya to do a bit of research on them, he knew more about seals then anyone else in the village. But for now it was no more than a painful reminder of what she had failed to do. Scowling Takara turned away from the mirrored wall, she muttered curses under breath and scared a few people in the hall with the shear intensity of her glare. She dropped the scary face outside the room, and paused with her hand on the knob as she heard talking inside. Sliding the door open Takara peeked in, Hinata was sitting cross legged on the bed talking to her genin. The small one was on the bed as well the other girl was standing cross armed leaning against a wall and the Royki boy was on the visitors chair.
"Hey Nee-chan. How was the physio?" Hinata asked as Takara stepped in and slid the door closed again.
"Painful, but I'll live. Hey kids." Takara gave them a wave.
"Ohayou gozaimasu Takara-sama" Shin said, giving a small bow, (A/N 'Good morning' or literally 'it's early') Takara still thought that a Royki showing respect to her was very weird, but appreciated it none the less.
"You guys sneak in?" Takara asked, with reference to the head nurse's strict rules.
"No she let them in."
"Really? How'd you swing that?"
"Aiko did her puppy eyes. Works every time" Shin told her, Aiko grinned. Takara let out a bark of a laugh and returned to her bed.
"Well don't mind me." Takara picked up her book and flicked it open to the marked page. Managing to avoid looking like a twat with her one working arm. Takara kind of faded into the background as she became absorbed in her book. Hinata talked to her genin for another while, they told her that Shikamaru had taken them on a mission while she was off in Grass. They completed it with no real trouble, except for Shin getting his foot caught in a grating, and it seemed Shikamaru was not as patient as Hinata.
Hinata chuckled and Shin mocked Shikamaru's tone and his usual 'Troublesome' phase with a bored expression.
"Well if we're lucky I'll be out of here by the end of the week." Hinata told her genin.
"Not likely"
"Huh? Ino?" the jounin looked up, at the blond girl who came in, with medication for the two women.
"If you're lucky and the doctor says so you can leave but you'll be off duty for another week or so. You did do a job on your back and leg, speaking of isn't it time for your physio?"
"I already went." Takara answered not looking up from her book.
"Not you, Hinata" Ino said to the woman who'd just drifted into the conversation.
"Oh" with that she left it again.
"I guess it is" Hinata looked at her watch which was on the bedside cabinet. "Guess you guys got to go." The genin moaned, they didn't want to go back to training with Neji.
With the genin gone and Hinata off to physiotherapy for her back, Takara was alone in the room, with a small wheeled table stretching over the bed with a cup of water on it. She'd just finished the second volume of Makeout Paradise, the third one however was still in her dorm, So the poor sannin was left with nothing to distract herself except her own thoughts. These however tended to turn dark once she looked at the black lines on her arms.
"Hey sis." Hebi came into the room with a smile. "Whoa… what's wrong?" Hebi dropped the smile once he saw the grim expression on her face.
"Its nothing…" she said curtly.
"Takara?" Hebi stood at the edge of the bed, she avoided his gaze. "I know that look, what is it?" She looked at him from the corner of her eyes.
"I had him…" she muttered quietly.
"What?" Hebi asked, he didn't quite hear her.
"I said I HAD HIM!" she slammed her fist on the small table sending the cup of water to the ground. The plastic cup bounced and rolled under the bed. "He was right there, Right in front of me!" she shouted angrily. Hebi didn't have to ask who, she only acted this way about one person. "I injured him, I could have killed him! I should have killed him, all I had to do was step forward and strike." Takara slammed her fist on the table and again, this time she snapped the wood of the table and it fell back from the recoil.
"Then what happened?" Hebi asked as gently as he could, lifting the slab of broken wood from the bed.
"The same as last time! He attacked someone else, someone who couldn't defend themselves." Takara growled, and clutched her fist.
"Who?"
"Hinata, she was down and injured, but he attacked her anyway just to escape!"
"so you saved her?"
"Of course! But he was so close!"
"If you went back would you kill him rather then save your apprentice? Would you become as cold as him just to kill him?"
"No! Never, but…"
"then you should stop blaming yourself. You said you wounded him, and he used underhanded tricks to escape. There's nothing you could have done." Takara said nothing just hung her head, a veil of hair covered her face, Hebi couldn't see her expression. "You can match his strength"
"He won't get away next time, I will kill him next time." She spat dangerously.
"Your hand's bleeding." Hebi took her hand and pressed a spare bandage from the bedside on to it, she'd been gripping her fist so tight he nails pierced her palm. "When will they start work on your other arm?" Hebi asked trying to change the subject.
"Later tonight" Takara answered plainly but Hebi could tell her mind was still on the last conversation.
Out side the room, Hinata was frozen with her hand on the handle, she had a habit of over hearing things she wasn't meant to.
Jiraiya tossed another scroll aside. This one was useless as well. He sighed and lifted his tea. The man had gone through most of the seal techniques scrolls, books and texts he had but nothing matched the one on Takara. The 'pet' seal, as he called it, was custom. Rubbing his eyes he sat back in his chair and looked around the shelves. He hadn't been in his house for a while. It was as he left it.
He had talked to Takara and Tsunade about the seal. It looked like now that the seal was active, Takara's chakra had been completely sealed away, she couldn't form any at all, Tsunade thought it may be due to the physical damage to her body it would be difficult enough anyway, But Jiraiya knew better, not only was that infernal seal blocking her chakra, it was slowly eating at her strength, therefore making it more difficult to break the seal, if he could find out how first of all.
Jiraya finally reached a conclusion, there was only one place where there would be a record of this seal.
The wind blew across the overgrown meadow, long forgotten, the grass and vines had taken over the old obstacle course, most of the wood was rotten and the platforms had crumbled, the once carefully maintained sparring ground was no longer recognisable. The old sannin looked around himself. This was once one of the best training grounds in the village, it had produced one of the strongest shinobi in the village. Jiraiya remembered watching the young genin clear the now decaying course.
He turned towards a equally rotten cabin, its roof had collapsed and the weeds had invaded its floor. Jiraiya grabbed the handle of the door and it came away in his hand. Tossing it over his shoulder he just booted the door in, it splintered without much resistance. The mans senses were assaulted by the smell of decay. Ignoring the mess around him, he pushed the tipped over table out of the way and opened the trapdoor. Dropping down into the gloomy tunnel below, he started along it until he came to Orochimaru's old lab. Jiraiya pulled a torch out of his belt and flicked it on. He swept the beam across the room, a startled rat scampered across the floor and disappeared into one of many holes in the wall.
No one had been in here since Orochimaru fled, there was still blood in the cell and on the restraints on the table. He walked past all this towards a number of filing cabinets in the corner of the room, most of Orochimaru's work and notes had been left here. Gripping the torch between his teeth Jiraiya began to search through Orochimaru's notes from his twisted experiments. Hopefully there was something here about the seals he created.
Hinata didn't mention anything about the conversation she over heard between Takara and Hebi. But not long after Hinata came back from her detour to allow Takara to be talked around by Hebi, Takara got out of her bed and got dressed.
"Where are you going?" Hinata asked.
"Outta here, my operation has been delayed until tomorrow and I can't eat the stuff they serve in here" Takara answered and slowly manoeuvred her left arm into the sleeve of her t-shirt and then into a sling. "And I need a hair cut."
"You're sneaking outta hospital with a crushed arm to go get a hair cut?"
"Uh… yeah, basically." Takara said buckling her belt.
"I didn't see you" Hinata knew she couldn't stop Takara, so she ignored the woman sneaking out the window.
Takara jumped carefully down from the window and after checking her escape wasn't noticed, she straightened her top and walked down the street, so knew a nice little hair dressers not that far away.
After getting her hair washed, the hair dresser got to work restoring Takara's short style. The stylist stepped away to find a hair dryer, while she did that Takara looked around the salon, and spotted something familiar, she suppressed her smile until the hair dresser finished. She paid, and then walked over to the person she had recognised who had also just finished getting his hair cut, and was checking it out in the mirror.
"I knew you liked that do." she lent on the back of the chair as Gai spun to face her. She grinned at him with a 'caught you' look.
"Snagged huh?" he asked.
"Yep" she grinned as he cringed, she's caught him getting his hair cut back into the style she cut for him during the forced make over.
"Hey wait, aren't you meant to be in the hospital." Gai asked handing over the money for the hair cut.
"what can I say, I'm hungry. And hospital food is not really filling."
"So… dango?"
"Yes please."
"So where's Naruto tonight?" Ino asked. She was on break and decided to chat to Hinata.
"He's on a mission, he'll be back tomorrow through." Hinata answered, she missed the lovable blond.
"Hey, question."
"Yeah?"
"Where's Takara-sama?" Ino looked over to the empty bed.
"I dunno, Nee-chan wasn't here when I came back." Hinata lied, Ino got up and went to look at the chart, any appointments or other scheduled events where recorded on a sheet under the main vitals. Flicking up the page Ino glanced down the list.
"She should be here, her operation was postponed till tomorrow."
"Really?" Hinata asked. Ino spotted something just under the covers, pulling them back she found the hospital issue pj's, after finding those Ino checked the cupboard, the set of clothes Gai brought a while ago where gone.
"Dammit, Takara left the hospital" Ino left the room to find and tell Tsunade.
Nee-chan… you are so busted. Hinata thought.
"You're gonna choke if you don't slow down." Gai smirked across the table. They had gone to Takara's favourite dango shop for something to eat.
"I've been living on a tube in my arm for a while and that stuff in the hospital can't be called food, leave me alone." Takara shot back playfully and chomped on another dango ball. Gai laughed at her but said nothing more about it.
"So is your team almost ready for the exams" Takara asked trying to get a conversation going.
"Tenten and Lee?"
"Yup" she speared another dango ball with her stick and popped into to her mouth. She listened as Gai talked about his two genin. It was nice to talk about normal things for a while.
"Myehhh" the whine from the door caught their attention. Tonton the pig was at the door.
"Dammit." Takara muttered.
"You weren't allowed to leave where you?" Gai said, more as a statement than a question.
"Not exactly…" Takara cringed as Tsunade appeared in the doorway.
"Good work Tonton," she said to her pet pig, the little pig was just as good as a sniffer dog. "Royki Takara!" she scolded as she strode up to the table, Takara winced as she got the full name treatment from the hokage.
"Tsunade-sama, care to join us?" Takara offered a sweet smile but her tactics didn't work.
"Hosptial, now!" Tsunade said sharply,
"Okay, okay, I'm going…" Takara reluctantly pushed herself up from the table and took a step away, she paused, reached back and lifted the rest of her dango. Gai let out a bark of laughter as Takara saved her food. Tsunade rolled her eyes and steered the woman out the door. Gai paid for the meal and followed soon after.
Jiraiya had found what he was looking for, a record of the sealing jutsu that had been applied to Takara. He read over the records and compared them to some of his own texts. He was right it was a custom one Orochimaru had developed himself. That night he took his findings to Tsunade.
"So what does it do?" she asked, too tired to read his notes.
"It's a limiting seal, once activated it will seal off the victims chakra almost right away, its effective but not perfect, eventually the victims chakra forces the seal to recede. If the victims overall chakra reserve increases since the seal was first applied the marking of the seal will fade which explains why it wasn't visible on Takara for many years. But there is a problem."
"What's that?" Tsunade knew there was a big 'but' in there somewhere.
"If the seal becomes fully active it will actively absorb the host chakra, preventing them from using it or from forcing the seal to recede on top of that it turns this chakra back on them causing physical fatigue".
"That's already happening, the poison meant the seal was able to complete itself without much opposition, when I got her back from the dango place it wore her out just going up the stairs."
"That's bad"
"What can be done?" Tsunade asked.
"Well, like I said its effective but not perfect. If a large enough level of chakra is circulating in the body it will effectively force the seal to recede, once it's back in its symbol form it can be counter sealed."
"You said she couldn't form chakra."
"True but knowing Takara she'll not let that stop her from trying. If we can at least get that seal to go back into its mark form. Then we can stop it from being activated by Orochimaru again, maybe remove it completely." Tsunade understood and picked up the notes, and scanned them.
"Hang on…"
"What?" Jiraiya asked, Tsunade had a bit of urgency in her tone.
"You said the fully active seal uses her own chakra energy against her, eating away her stamina and strength, right?"
"According to Orochimaru's observations."
"Then if Takara tries to form that much chakra, won't it cause a massive drain on her body."
"It is probable."
"Takara is recovering from a heart attack Jiraiya" Tsunade said.
"So?" it was obvious he knew little about direct medicine.
"Any unnecessary stress could cause her to have another heart attack. I can't allow this." Tsunade pushed the notes away from herself. "Her body can't handle this kind of thing yet."
"But the longer we wait, the harder it will be for her to form any sort of chakra and the weaker her body will become anyway."
"So if we try this now, it could kill her, if we wait, she might not be able to do it at all." Tsunade rubbed her forehead, and Jiraiya crossed his arms.
"We can't afford to lose a shinobi of Takara's level, least of all now," she said.
"I know… But we both know we can't make this decision for her." Tsunade nodded.
"At least give me until tomorrow, after her left arm is repaired, then we'll talk to her about it."
"I think I know which option she'll choose".
"Me too, but we have to tell her the risks."
End Chapter 25
(LMD sits cross legged in background with notes and tries to cram the katakana syllaburies into her thick skull)
I wanna learn too!! Share your notes!!
Okay skip, okay
Sigh, I'm not gonna get that for a while, well read and review people.